Bergen County Among Hardest Hit in NJ Epidemic of Heroin Deaths

March 23, 2014 By Rebecca D. O'Brien Staff WriterNorthJersey.com

The dead include a former high school football player, a mother from Oakland and best friends who died within two weeks of each other. Seven of them were under 30. Four were women. Nearly all died in their Bergen County homes.

So far this year, heroin has claimed the lives of at least 13 Bergen County residents — a rate of more than one per week. If the trend continues, by year’s end deaths would vastly exceed the county’s 27 fatal overdoses in 2013.

Caitlin Reiter, a 21-year-old from Franklin Lakes, died of a heroin overdose on Feb. 2 at her father’s home. Her addiction began in high school with prescription pills; no rehabilitation facility or family intervention could stop it. The toll has alarmed county officials, who fear that opiate addiction is growing more entrenched in North Jersey.

“It starts at a party with a painkiller and ends alone at night in your bedroom,” said Sgt. David Borzotta of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office narcotics task force.